The morning news. [volume] (Savannah, Ga.) 1887-1900, 1887-04-30
ONO RIVER PIRATES.
THEIR MURDEROUS ATTACK UPON
A rLAT-pOATS STORE.

a Brave Cnis Vengeance -Terrorizlng
q Gang of Outlaws-Iuntedt to Death
in the river TIE Fate OF Ranse
Price.
From !ie Cincinnati Enquire.
A snecies Of craft that was in early days
mite common ON the Ohio aud Mississippi
rivers but that has now passed away for
.,,o,. was the at-boat store. In its best
character it was great convenience to set
ners along the banks, to whom its supply
NJ miscellaneous goods was Of the utmost
i,rnortance while i'll it's worst-which was,
unfortunately, most frequent-it was an in
disnansable adjunct to the rougher life of
border civilization. Generally these boats
started from Pittsburg or Wheeling, and
simply drifted with the current down to
New Orleans, a journeyin which as much as
q eighteen months or two years were fire.
ouently consumed.
They were roughly but strongly built,
broad. fiat, square hulls, bearing upon them
two rooms, constructed of rough boards, the
larger of which was the store and the
smaller the home of the proprietor and his
CONSTANTS and family Sometimes there
were three rooms. A huge oar, 20 or %
feet long. was fixed in the centre of the
stern TO serve as a rudder. There were no
coils ON any other means of propulsion.
stout hawsalS were cooled in the forward
mart of the deck and one also on the stern.
These boats went down the river, but
nayer came back. The stout lumber of
for a GOOD part at least of their cost, and
the loss on them was little more than a rea-
'sonahle store rent for their term of ser
vice Otter, mink, raccoOn, muskrat and
other skins we're purchased by the floating
traders, and they sold all manner of things,
from C1indstones and powder TO ribbons
and simple drugs. An important part Of
their stock, generally,,was whisky.
Some of them, indeed dealt almost ex-
clusively in whisky and plug tobacco; but
they were tough fellows, and thor boats
were. as a rule, objects OF suspicion and
even terror TO peaceable and respectable
shore dwellers by reason OF the lawless
characters that infested them.
''CANFIELDS STORE"
was not one of that class. It's proprietor,
Samuel Garfield, of Wheeling, was an in
dustrious, sober and doubtless passably hon
est fellow, who did general trading bust
ness and though he sold a good deal of
whisky. he only vended the stuff in jugs
and bottles, obstinately refusing to turn'his
boat into barroom. He had been in the
business Twelve OF IllUeGD years, dJ ZIG LttIle
when he started upon his last voyage in
1889. and was commonly reported to have
amassed quite a snug competency. His
wife and two children always accompanied
him, living, eating and sleeping in the two
little rooms back of the store, the front of
which bore she title heading this paragraph.
His eldest daughter, Mary, was a large,
fne-looking resolute girl, about IS years
old, his Youngest smart little maid of nine
1rrho cd bD
He had had son, two years younger than
Mary. but the tad died of a fever caught
from the miasmatic civilizations of the Mis-
siSsppi and was buried under a spreading
sycamore tree somewhere below Memphis.
After the boy died Mr.. Garfield had an as
sistant named Stacker, who Travelled with
him for two journeys, but as Mr.. Stacker
was Extensively pertinacioIIS i'll his ad
vances to Mary when he was drunk he was
discharged, and tbenceforth the boat was
managed exclusively by the Garfield fam
lily.
On the night of June 80 1899, Canfield's
store was moored to a stout tree on the
river bank in Harrison's Bend, some seven
teen miles below Marietta. The hawser by
which she was held had been paid out
nearly hundred feet and her big steering
oar was made fast in such wise as to keer
her out in the current fully 80 feet from
shore, that precaution being taken to pre-
vent unwelcome visitors stepping aboard
easily.
As a protection against thieves who
might come off i'll a boat, Garfield kept 6
dog to give warning of their approach but
the dog had been poisoned while the boat
lay at Marietta two weeks before this time
a successor to the animal had not yet beer
appointed. The family, however, felt nc
uneasiness, as the place where they had
tied up was a very secluded spot, far from
any human habitation
They would have felt less secure. and
would not have made fast for fear of ris-
ing fog IN the early evening, had they sus
pected that they had been marked for the
prey of gang of
RIVER PIRATES,
headed by the notorious desperate
Ranse" Price; that the poisoning of the
Jog was the first step of the gang toward al
attack upon them, and that Price, with
tnree comrades, had been skulking after
mem mem m small boat ever since they left
Marietta, looking for an opportunity t.
ponnce upon them lnawares
mat opportunity presented itself this
evening, About II O'Clock the pirate:
noSelessly ran alongside , the storeboat
made fast to her, clambered aboard and
made dash into the store, the door OF
, winch had, unfortunately, been left open
4 -" 1no ASnU Dellg very warm
MT Canfield, springing from his bed tc
iepel the invaders, was shot down before
nc C0uld grasp weapon, and his wife's
Ratchet
Mary and her sister occupied a small
II u;.n behind the store and not connected
Wlth IT. the only entrance to which was 8
uoor at the back of the irregular house
structure. Before the pirates got around tc
t sldt door, the girls had leaped from theil
HeuS' and seeing through chinks in the wall
~ une ilght OF the swinging lamp in the
sore, the murder of their parents, sought
river eo -'O '-'
mary had already disappeared in the
of So W. ana Julia stood hesitating, when one
~ We bandits rushed around the corner OF
He mousse and Knocked her senseless with 9
Wv" OF his gunstock. Another of the
ment VIZ i'ei '0 'A0 nv
l.. Lend me your knife to cut her throat, g
celded the first, bending over the un.
N's. !IIus child, I've dropped mine.n
nconalilb got none,h replied the other
we'll WIG ""'ci' intiu VIII 90 as
AL me first speaker deliberately picked III
ba oor little girl by one ankle and lowered
nj mead foremost into tho water at Tho
So, Sow" Vi the boat. He held her there fol
ttet'u minutes To make sure that She wa,
f'Ite dead, and then LAT ha,. sIi1,, ;nt.